Chance
by antepathy
Summary: SPOILERS for DOTM.  Barricade and Starscream have a brief meeting to try to deal with some...plot holes. My response to the movie.


My little angstfest. YOU KNOW I bawled when they died. You know it.;_;

"You know," Barricade muttered. "Fraggin' reason I stayed over here while you command idiots squatted in the sand over there."

"It is called you cannot fly," Starscream returned, tartly, dropping down to one foreknee. "Now." He popped the amber canopy of his cockpit, spilling out the load of hatchlings. "Your mission."

The hatchlings, silver and grey and dull bronze, tumbled over Starscream's taloned hands, their own limbs clutching, squirming over the battered metal.

"Yeah," Barricade said, taking a step back. "You see, THAT was the reason I was talking about. Not really…a good influence for the younger element." As the jet should fraggin' know. His lower set of optics watched the squirming mass warily. "Look kinda…runty."

Starscream gave a dissatisfied chuff. "Yes. We can survive on this human fuel, but it is…unsuitable for their developing frames."

"Gonna all be stupid." Unless the plan was to raise a bunch of dronelings who'd never develop out. It was a Fraggin' Disturbing Idea, but, well, that file in Barricade's cortex was full of things also tagged "Megatron". "Should kill half of 'em, let the others have a chance." He twitched as one of the hatchlings rolled onto his foot, its little uneven claws grabbing on his toespike.

"They are our future," Starscream said, severely. "We cannot choose who lives and who dies." He rolled a few of the hatchlings—almost tenderly—between his hands. "What if we chose poorly. What if the only ones we chose were groundframes." His mouth calipers pinched.

"Oh yeah, wouldn't that be a shame. No airframes." Barricade stared at the hatchling, who was struggling to its feet, standing on his toeplate, optics spinning to focus.

"My point is," Starscream said, "That we might choose poorly."

"So damning them to…this? A lot better?"

"Have we 'damned' ourselves to anything better?"

Barricade glared up at the jet. "You sound like you're giving up."

"Giving up?" An uneven cycle of air and a flash of something that wasn't—quite—anger. Barricade was unsettled. He expected anger. What had happened during the last years? "No. I am simply acknowledging," the jet paused again, mouthplates grating, "that the future of our kind may…not include me."

"Traitor, are you?" Another hatchling bumped against him, little hands clawing against his ankle. His window-wings flicked. Stupid helpless creatures. Should all die. Be a fraggin' mercy.

"No. Never." Another strange flare in the optics. "I have always been for a strong Cybertron, for our kind to know its power. Its strength." His talons curled into fists, until a trapped hatchling squeaked. He released his hand, wingflaps twitching. "But our numbers are dwindling, on both sides. And without a future…what are any of us fighting for?"

Barricade looked away. "Give 'em to the Autobots, then. Sure they could get them the right nutrients."

"Ah, but then I _would_ be a traitor," Starscream said, mildly, a bitter amusement in his voice. "And besides…have our Autobot enemies, in all of this, ever sought to continue our kind?" He shook his head. "They would destroy the hatchlings. All of them. Deny it." The optics grew sharp, a talon pointed at Barricade's worn chassis. "Deny any of it."

Barricade…couldn't. His optics dropped to the squirming mass, giving soft bleats of hunger. "Pretty fraggin' pitiful future."

"Better than nothing," Starscream said. "And perhaps they shall do better than we did."

Barricade grunted. "What do you want me to fraggin' do about it?"

"Take them. Put them someplace safe, where they have food and protection. Where they have a chance."

"What if we don't come back?" The possibility dropped on Barricade. He'd been fighting for millennia. Death was never a surprise. But looking at the little things, mewling, pathetic, theirs, he felt a sudden pinch of…fear?

"We give them a chance," Starscream said, straightening, forcing himself upright, aloof. "What they make of it is theirs. It is all we can do."

A/N. I've always been a bit...uncomfortable with the Autobots in Bayverse. But before you argue that 'omg no the Autobots would never DO this' (Someone tried that, and lost that argument with me already on LJ) consider the short version: Decepticons would likely have propaganda to this effect.


End file.
